


there is no law that the gods must be fair

by twilightstargazer



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Missing Scene, canonverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-06 18:37:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11041941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twilightstargazer/pseuds/twilightstargazer
Summary: Licking her lips, she brings the radio closer to her helmet until it’s almost touching, hand wrapped in an almost vice like grip around it. “... Bellamy?” she tries once more, hoping in vain that he can somehow hear her.Silence again, but just when she’s about to shove it back into the bag, there’s a burst of static followed by a crackle and then-“Clarke?”or, clarke has something to say to bellamy under the tower





	there is no law that the gods must be fair

**Author's Note:**

> it's been six days and i'm still not okay. this is my life and these are my piss poor choices. also, i used to watch a lot of doctor who and tenrose broke my heart so. that should be a warning enough for y'all

Maybe some tiny, morbid part of her always knew it would end like this.

Not like  _ this  _ exactly; out in the snow all by herself, the words ‘manual operation’ somehow making no sense and yet sitting heavy on her chest at the same time while her timer continues to blink, unawares that it’s no longer tracking the time until she leaves for survival, but the time left until her death.

Clarke figures that a small part of her always knew since Abby’s vision that she wasn’t going to make it to space, but she’d be damned if she didn’t see to it that her friends got there.

That doesn’t mean she’s okay though.

The radio is clutched tight in her hand, trembling slightly and she decides to try one last time.

“Raven?” she asks into the nothingness, voice small. 

There’s no reply.

Licking her lips, she brings the radio closer to her helmet until it’s almost touching the glass, hand wrapped in an almost vice like grip around it. “... Bellamy?” she tries once more, hoping in vain that he can somehow hear her.

Silence again, but just when she’s about to shove it back into the bag, there’s a burst of static followed by a crackle and then-

“Clarke?”

His voice is tinny, almost too weak to be heard over the interference, but she manages. Her eyes squeeze shut wanting to commit to memory the way his voice sounds like gravel, the way his tongue curls so gently over the consonants of her name as it’s the last time she’ll ever hear him say it.

“Bellamy I-,” she pauses to swallow heavily. “I’m not going to make it back in time,” she tells him in one breath, biting the bullet.

A beat. And then, “What the  _ hell  _ does that mean?” he growls

Her eyes are stinging with the pressure of unshed tears and her helmet is getting foggy thanks to her rapid breathing. Still, she soldiers on, ripping the wires from the port and shoving them in her bag before she starts to climb.

“It means,” she pants, pulling herself up rung by rung, “That the sat tower can only be operated manually. It means that I have to climb to the top and plug this in so it can transmit to the ring.” She pauses as the first tear drips down her cheek and takes a shuddering breath. “It means that my time is up. My fight is over.”

“ _ No _ ,” he says, fiercely. “No you can still- you’re gonna make it back. You’re going to be fine. You’re fight is  _ not  _ over.”

She laughs, watery and low, and hears Bellamy sniff as though he’s trying to keep from crying too. “Raven said I need at least ten minutes to get back to the lab. I have seven left and I’m not even finished. I’m not even halfway up the tower.”

“I’m coming to get you,” he says, sounding so sure in his convictions that Clarke slips of a bar, swearing as she flails about for one heart stopping moment before she rights herself. On the walkie she can hear him asking if she’s alright, and she grips the bar tighter before bringing it up to her face.

“Don’t you fucking  _ dare _ , Bellamy Blake,” she tells him, her voice leaving no room for argument even as tears continue to slip down her face. “You are  _ not  _ leaving that lab for some stupid suicide mission. You are  _ not  _ dying today.”

“Oh, but it’s fine if you do?” he snaps. 

“Nothing is fine!” she bursts, hanging more than fifty feet off the ground, a radio with its signal getting weaker by the second clutched in hand. “Do you think I want this? To leave you? The others? It’s the only choice. The only way for you all to survive.” She huffs out a weak laugh as the image her words conjure, merely an hour ago when they were cracking lame jokes and he stroked her face so tenderly. 

The thought of it makes her heart squeeze almost painfully in her chest, causing her to gasp out another sob.

She thinks that the signal has dropped completely when he doesn’t reply immediately, and tries to ignore the dull ache clawing at her insides as she continues to climb, hefting herself up onto the platform at last. It’s only when her hands- half numb- are fumbling to open the bag does his response come through, a mere whisper through the radio.

“Clarke,” he says, and her heart flips again. The connection is going bad fast and she can barely him say, “There has to be another way. I can’t just- I can’t  _ lose  _ you.”

The tears show no signs of stopping, and she can’t stop the whimper that bubbles out of her throat at his words. “You have to. You  _ have  _ to let me go.”

“Clarke, I-”

“Take care of them for me,” she whispers. “Make sure Raven takes a break once in a while, and Monty is okay, and fucking Echo doesn’t kill everyone while you’re all sleeping.” His laugh is hitched on a sob and it just makes her cry harder, the words blurring as she tries to connect to the port. “And take care of yourself too.” She can see the death wave slinking over the horizon, fiery orange that promises to clear everything in its path. “ _ Promise me _ .”

“I- I promise,” he says, and there’s no doubt in her mind that he’s crying too, clinging to the radio like a lifeline.

There’s still so much she wants to tell him, so much she wants to thank him for and to talk about but at this point she running on borrowed time.

“Bellamy I-”

If she had more time, she would have written him an entire essay, a speech, a fucking sonnet if she had to. He deserves that much. Fuck, he deserves so much more than that, but all she can give are those three little words that are stuck in her throat, making it hard for her to breathe.

Still, Clarke tries again, taking a shuddering breath and screwing her eyes shut in an attempt to force them out.

“I love you.”

This isn’t how she wanted to tell him. Not when she’s a few minutes away from her death, not when she knows she’s never going to seeing him again. Not when she hasn’t had the chance to explore that love, when she hasn’t been able to kiss him, or hold him, or touch him. Not when the concept of loving him like that was still new to her.

All she wants is to be able to feel his arms around her more time, leaching of his warmth as she could pretend, just for a second, that everything was fine.

But they don’t have that, and the true tragedy here is that their story was over before it ever really began.

“I love you,” she says again, taking care to taste the words on her tongue. “I love you so much and I- I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. I’m sorry we never had a chance together. I’m sorry- I’m sorry I’m leaving you like this.”

She rests the radio on the ledge and finishes up connecting everything just like Raven told her. By the time she’s finished, she becomes acutely aware that the radio hasn’t made a single sound since she heard his last words. No beeps, no static, no crackles.

Nothing.

She grapples with it still, a sharp shock of pain flashing up her legs as she falls to her knees, trying to get back up and running once more, but no matter how many buttons she presses or how much she bangs it, the radio remains obstinately silent, and Clarke stays there, wet, heaving cries sounding from her body as she tries to come to terms with it.

It’s only when the low grumble of a rocket blasting off cuts through the air does she lift her head, eyes red and puffy, and face tear soaked as she watches them leave, saving themselves.

Eyes on the rocket, she brings the now useless radio up to her helmet and says, “I’m sorry you never knew how much I loved you.”

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to come ~hang~ with me during the hiatus on [tumblr](http://hiddenpolkadots.tumblr.com/)


End file.
